Dhaka to Roll Out Covid‑19 Booster Shots Across the Kingdom
On August 1, Prime Minister Hun Sen kicked off a new vaccination drive targeting teenagers aged 12 to 17, while also preparing a massive booster campaign for frontline workers. The plan is to alternate between the AstraZeneca and Chinese‑made vaccines to keep the virus at bay.
Who Gets the Third Dose?
Frontline workers – between 500,000 and 1 million people will receive the booster first. The staff that most face the virus, from healthcare professionals to delivery crews, get priority.
Vaccination mix guidance for the general public:
- If you’ve already had Sinopharm or Sinovac, the next shot is AstraZeneca.
- If your first shots were AstraZeneca, then Sinovac is the suggested third dose.
Source of the Booster Supply
Hun Sen announced that Cambodia will purchase additional AstraZeneca kits through the COVAX platform. The recently arriving Johnson & Johnson vaccines, funded by the United States, are earmarked for the various ethnic groups living in northeastern Cambodia.
Lockdown Across the Thai Border
This week a strict lockdown was imposed on eight provinces adjacent to Thailand, aimed at curbing the spread of the Delta variant.
According to the World Health Organization, the Delta strain was detected among migrants crossing the land border from Thailand and has already seeped into local communities. WHO representative Li Ailan said: “We are racing against new variants. We must act today, and we must act fast to have no regrets tomorrow.”
Current Infection Status
After a sizable containment effort during most of last year, Cambodia now reports 77 919 confirmed cases and 1 420 deaths, following an outbreak that began in late February.
